


An Officer and a Gentleman

by kittydesade



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-06
Updated: 2012-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night's duty for Officer Sean Renard. Pre-series character moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Officer and a Gentleman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bobthemole](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobthemole/gifts).



Everything about this situation bothered him. As a police officer, it bothered him not to be able to do anything except sit outside the door and keep watch, it bothered him that the case wasn't open and shut. As his father's son, it bothered him that this city couldn't keep its people safe. That children were taking fire in their own homes, collateral damage from gangs who had no respect for civilian presence in their little wars. That a single woman with two children to take care of had a better chance of providing for them in an undeveloped country than in one of the most prosperous nations in the world. It bothered him on so many levels.

But the only sign of any of this inner turmoil and perturbation was the jittering of one knee. Other than that he remained still, vigilant, keeping an eye out in case some gang-banger or one of the people bankrolling them decided that someone might have seen something and they should do something about that.

"You need some coffee or anything?" Two in the morning, and one of the nurses came through on a pill run. Painkillers, antibiotics. Medicines for the two girls and the young boy who had been sound asleep in their own beds twenty four hours earlier. 

Officer Sean Renard shook his head. "No, ma'am. Thank you."

They liked him because he was polite. She nodded on her way in, threw him a wry smile on her way out. "You know, if you can, might not be a bad idea to go in and talk to them a little. I wish we didn't have to wake them up every few hours, but we gotta have the blood tests and give them ..." 

He nodded, understanding flickering through after a moment. It couldn't be easy to be alone in a strange hospital in the middle of the night, and if they by some miracle managed to fall asleep, it wouldn't last. "Do you know if they found the next of kin?" 

"I don't know, sweetie. Ask your supervisor?"

He didn't know, either. And he was busy with the seven homicides they now had to investigate. 

She went back to the rest of her rounds and he went into the room. The younger girl, maybe eight years old, was curled up with her stuffed rabbit and pretending to be asleep as hard as she could. He left her alone, unsure whether or not she wanted to talk to an adult right now. 

The older girl was maybe twelve, maybe fourteen. A small fourteen, if so. She lay in the bed with tubes in her arms and the blanket tucked up around her chin looking uncomfortable and pissed off. The irritation in her eyes made him smile, as though all of this was just something they were doing to annoy her and if she could make everyone see sense they would stop. He pulled up a chair and sat next to her. 

"Aren't you supposed to be guarding us?" 

"Well, I can do that just as well from in here." He didn't take offense at her surly tone, gesturing as he explained. "I have a good sight line to the door, and all three of you are in this room. If I have to I can barricade the door and make sure no one gets in."

"That won't stop them from shooting through the walls," she pointed out. No doubt she thought she was being practical. He still saw the way her fingers clenched in the blankets. 

He leaned forward a little, keeping his voice low. "Well, if they try, I'll just shoot them back. You'll have to get under the floor and hide under the bed, do you think you can do that?" 

The girl glanced at the IV in her arm, then nodded. "I can do that."

"All right, then." He didn't think she knew how much pulling out the IV would hurt, but he was impressed that she'd thought of it. Maybe she had tried moving around in the bed and felt it tug. "But I don't think anyone's going to come in and shoot up the hospital." 

"Hmmph." She wasn't so sure. She had just had her home riddled with bullets; he wasn't sure he'd feel safe, either. "Did you tell Mommy where I am? She hasn't come to see me." 

Just like that, his blood thickened and chilled down to half the room's temperature. No one had told her. He scooted his chair a little closer and took her nearer hand in both of his, careful of the IV. Her face darkened as he moved, anticipating what he had to say. But, to his surprise, she let him say it. 

Only he didn't know how. He knew the facts of the case, that her mother had taken a stray bullet as she passed by a window. That she had bled out on the floor while they waited for the police to arrive, twenty minutes later. Margaret had been the lucky one, she was only injured. Or maybe not so lucky. Her father, he knew, had died of a heart attack far too young and several years earlier. He'd gotten that much from the medical history. 

She worked her hand out from his and patted his hand. "It's okay." Her mouth trembled on the words, but she said them anyway. "I thought... I mean, if..."

If her mother had been alive, she would have come to see her by now. He nodded. "There wasn't anything we could do." If response time had been better. If they'd caught wind of this before it happened. If, too many ifs. There were so many things they could have done before it came to this point and they had done none of them. 

She didn't say that, either. Just slumped back against the bed and looked even smaller than when he came in, and he revised his estimate of her age up to the higher end. Not young, just slight. Borderline malnourished, but she had been bright-eyed and healthy. Before she'd been shot. Now the doctors questioned whether or not she'd have full use of that leg, and it was a minor miracle she'd managed to roll under the bed. 

"We'll find the people who did this," he heard himself growl. "Don't you worry. We'll find them."

He didn't realize how he must look to her until she took her hand away and curled up tighter. As much as her tubes and the bed would allow, anyway. Rage wouldn't help her right now, he reminded himself. And a good bodyguard didn't terrify the small children he was supposed to protect. He reached up and brushed a little of her hair off her forehead, stomped on the need to go and mete out some justice. "Are you thirsty? Would you like something to drink?" She gave a tiny, wary nod. "Give me a second." He checked on the other girl and the boy, too, when he got up to get a cup of water from the hall. Both sound asleep again. That was something, at least.

When he settled back in the chair by her bed she sat up a little, taking the cup of water from his hand in both of hers and drawing in slow, careful sips, as though her throat hurt. Screaming was the first reason that occurred to him. He didn't like that any more than some of the other possibilities. "Thank you," she whispered.

"You're welcome," and the thought crossed his mind that it was odd a child up late at night in the hospital after being shot and orphaned would remember her manners. Good parenting. Until now. "Taking a lot of pills always makes me thirsty," he offered by way of conversation. 

She made a face at him. "Why did you have to take a lot of pills?" 

"Well, I was shot, too. In the line of duty," he leaned a little forward, keeping his voice down. "Right here, in the side. It was my own fault, though. You see, I thought I was trying to find a murderer in an empty house, and he thought I was a robber..." 

The real story was a little more gruesome and involved a stabbing rather than a shooting, not in the line of his duties as a police officer. But for a young girl in a hospital late at night who had just learned she was alone in the world, conspiracy and insurrection didn't seem like appropriate storytime fare. Getting a side full of rock salt from a chicken farmer was better. By the end of the mostly made-up story she was smiling again, a little, eyelids drooping and shoulders slumped as she fought off sleep.

"Now," he stood up, put the chair quietly back where he'd taken it from. "You'd better try get some more sleep, or the nurses will scold me." 

She giggled quietly. "And we wouldn't want that," she nodded, pulling the covers back over her again. He tucked her in the rest of the way, smoothed her hair back. 

"No, we wouldn't. I'll be right outside, if you need anything." He turned to go.

"Don't I get to know your name?" The near-imperiousness of the request was hampered somewhat by the yawn in the middle of the sentence. 

He turned around and gestured at his nameplate. "It's right here. Officer Ren--"

"Your _real_ name." 

Stock still, standing there, he must have looked ridiculous. Blinking at a sleepy, injured girl on a hospital bed with complete blank-faced confusion. "It's... Sean."

"Sean," she tasted the sounds, wrinkled her lips. Maybe it tasted as strange to her as it sounded to him. "Good night, Sean."

"Good night, Margaret."

" _Maggie._ "

He laughed at her scowling correction, which only made her glare harder. "Good night, Maggie."


End file.
